Conventionally, a video recording apparatus is controlled so that a target bit rate will be reached within a certain period of time at the time of compressing data.
Recent years have seen development of an image recording device that records digital broadcast using a mass storage medium such as an HDD (Hard Disk Drive), a BD (Blu-Ray Disc), and a DVD (Digital Versatile Disk). Even the image recording device with such a mass storage medium is designed so that, with the target bit rate established, the bit rate converges within a certain period of time (in the order of several minutes).
Patent Document 1 discloses, with respect to an image encoding device that performs encoding based on a variable bit rate control, a technology of performing the rate control by setting a lower limit to a quantization scale in such a manner that actual storage capacity will be kept below a predicted value of the storage capacity of a recording medium, thereby avoiding encoding in excess of a target amount of information. Furthermore, Patent Document 1 also carries description of an intentional increase of the amount of information to be generated by conversely setting an upper limit to the quantization scale when an unlimited amount of information can be stored on the recording medium of the disc, etc.